


The State of You

by emjam



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Arguments, Blackwatch Era, Gen, Human Experimentation, Not A Happy Ending, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, it's comin though, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-10 09:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14734430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emjam/pseuds/emjam
Summary: Moira and Reyes work together and the results are terrifying. Reyes seeks comfort, but McCree isn't very willing to give it.





	The State of You

**Author's Note:**

> I rated this teen just cause there's swearing and idk, it's also.. Kinda gross? Not extreme though.

“McCree.” 

The gruff tone is appropriate for a commander, but nevertheless feigned, and no longer has any weight behind it. Reyes is tired, and empty, and ready for this all to be over. But it’s not like the world stops when he wants it to.

“McCree. Open the door.” A beat. “Please.” 

An ashy plume of poisonous smoke escapes from the corner of his mouth. 

The dark hallway of rooms is in complete shadow, and a digital clock on the wall counts the minutes in agonizing slowness. It was midnight when the experiment was complete; a suitable time for O’Deorian’s secretive and grim work. But because of that, McCree is probably asleep, and Reyes is ghosting away in the dark. His skin feels slimish and fuzzy under his fingers. 

If he pokes hard enough, he can dig his finger into his hazy arm. 

It turns out that the ideas of the theory are much different in practice. What O’Deorian described as a vehicle for teleportation and heightened motion actually feels like an eldritch horror has come to life in his bones.

_“It isn’t permanent. Rest until it fades away. Come to me if there’s an emergency. If you’re interested in a more concrete modification similar to this, let me know.”_ O’Deorian’s instructions come back to him, but this is nothing that he expected. He doesn’t know what to do. The feeling of being so physically malleable isn’t one he was prepared for.

His insides feel like soup.

A dull beep emits from the other side of the door, and Reyes’ short sigh of relief is accentuated by a deep purple cloud that erupts from his mouth. The door slides open. McCree stands there in his pajamas. The room behind him is only lit by a desk lamp, most of it eaten by darkness.

“Boss, what…” McCree runs his eyes over the wisps of _something_ smoking off of his commander’s skin. He backs up warily. Fear. Then, distrust. “Why are you here?” The question holds mostly apprehension, only a hint of sympathy. Like Reyes is a stranger.

“Kid, I’m actually terrified right now.” Reyes steps forward in an attempt to enter the room. He moves as if injured, arms cradling nonexistent bruising around his abdomen. Those soupy insides, he’s reminded.

McCree kicks forward a bare foot to stop his commander’s legs. It works. “Is this O’Deorian’s work?” Sharp, steely eyes follow the strings of darkened skin that slough off Reyes’ arms and dissipate before they hit the ground.

It feels like an interrogation. It’s all wrong. 

Bile surges up involuntarily to the back of Reyes’ teeth. He wipes his mouth. Black residue stares back from his hand. What the fuck?

“Answer me.” McCree insists.

“Don’t speak to me that way.”

“Bullshit! You don’t come in here like this and pull your rank shit on me.” McCree’s gaze lingers on the black sludge that Reyes is hesitant to wipe off onto anything else.

Reyes sighs. Another dark cloud rises from his lips, and McCree furrows his brows at it. “Yes. It is. But -”

“Did you agree to this?”

Easy anger rises inside of him at the question. People always question him now. “Yeah, McCree, I fucking agreed to it! It may not seem like it, but this has positive effects that would be useful for my men!”

“Like hell it does, _look_ at you!”

Reyes is silent. His hands are now at his sides.

“You haven’t _seen_ yourself?” There’s a frantic sort of disappointment in his voice. Before Reyes can respond, McCree holds up a hand. “Don’t come in. Go to your own bathroom and take a look.” 

“What -”

“I don’t mean to be _rude_ , sir, but this is your own damn fault.” His words shake slightly. “You know I didn’t like bringin’ her on. What she does…” He shakes his head. “It just ain’t right. So don’t come to me and make me look at this. Go to her.” 

Neither of them say anything for a moment, heated and angry, daring the other to move first. There’s a marginal amount of respect for Reyes still there within the kid he once dragged into Blackwatch, but it’s abandoned and doesn’t show in McCree’s eyes. 

“McCree.” There’s more bile in his throat. He’s scared. Fear and anger distort his face. Jack no longer talks to him, and McCree is the only one left who may listen. But what can he say? Maybe he’s not doing the right thing. They don’t trust him anymore. He shouldn’t have taken on Blackwatch in the first place. 

His insides feel like soup.

“ _Leave_ , boss.” 

The weary dismissal tastes of disappointment when the door is shut and locked in Reyes’ face.

His hands become fists at his sides. He grinds his teeth. Then, he tests out the teleportation aspect of O’Deorian’s experiment.

It’s an odd feeling. Like someone took a fork and split his body into stringy pieces, only to toss the resulting pile back together again. It’s not pleasant. He comes together again crashing down to the floor of his own bathroom, retching foulness onto the white tile. The puke is oddly colored, but not pitch-black. It’s uncomfortable how reassuring that is.

Definitely his bathroom. There’s his toothbrush, his shaving cream, his mouthwash. So it worked then.

At least he didn’t hurl onto the floor of someone else’s bathroom.

He rises. His stomach is churning. 

The faucet button clicks into the wall, and cold water splashes into the sink. He cups the flowing water into his hands and washes out his mouth. Spits out strange, viscous material. Hopefully that doesn’t hurt the plumbing. 

He lays his head on his arms on the lip of the sink. The water is still running and wets his hair. Its cold fingers drip down his face and into his eye. He wipes it out and blinks once, twice. Looks up at the mirror with his hands gripping the sink’s edges.

McCree’s disgust makes sense.

Dark bubbles flay out into sickly black tendrils that slide off his arms. A hasty removal of his shirt shows a worse version at his shoulders, revolting whips of unidentifiable _something_ curling out of his skin, wild with their freedom from the constraints of cloth. And everywhere smoke. It wisps off of his head, shoulders, arms, rising to the washed-out bathroom ceiling. He meets his own uncertain, tired eyes in the mirror. The man looking back seems like he’s ill, like he needs a break. The man looking back doesn’t even look like a man.

Monstrous.

_“...look at you!”_

Reyes shuts his eyes. He wills away the image of McCree’s disappointed, angry face. What matters is that the technology worked. If O’Deorian refines this, it can be invaluable. 

It worked. They got the results they were looking for. That’s all that matters.

Yes, it’s terrifying. Yes, he is scared of the way his skin isn’t his own. Yes, there’s a nebulous air to his entire body right now that makes him quake with fear.

But it worked.

In the morning, he will go back to O’Deorian and discuss the experiment’s success, and they will move forward.

Whatever the cost.


End file.
